Red

by Kait Nolan

  Something hit my hand, a hard and fast strike that left my fingers stinging. I released the knife, my eyes springing open.

  What the hell—

  “—are you doing?”

  I didn’t register anything but the tone—furious and threatening. Still drenched in fear from my bout with the knife, I couldn’t think, couldn’t process. Some primitive part of my brain urged me into motion, and I scrambled backward and away, automatically looking around for a weapon before I even identified the threat.

  My eyes lit on my knife, embedded halfway to the hilt in a flowering dogwood across the clearing. For a few precious seconds, I just stared.

  How…?

  Then someone moved to my right, and I bolted back in panic. My heart kicked hard in my chest. He was huge. A great beast of a boy with linebacker shoulders and an expression of growling menace on his angular face. His hands were held up in a placating gesture, but everything in his posture screamed agitation and aggression. For every step I took in one direction, he countered.

  Trapped.

  My brain screamed at me to move, escape. But he was a good foot taller, with legs that would easily eat up any lead I would gain by surprise if I ran. I found myself lifting my head slightly and widening my nostrils to smell.

  The stink of my own fear clouded everything else. I inhaled again sifting through the scents with some deeper part of my brain. Damp earth. Fresh cut green wood. And something else I couldn’t identify.

  The initial panic begin to ebb enough that I started understanding what he was saying.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.” That he snarled it in frustration didn’t lend a lot of credence to the statement.

  My breath was still coming fast and shallow. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not inclined to believe you.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you, but I had to stop you.”

  “Stop me?” I asked blankly.

  “I don’t care how bad things are, that’s not the answer.”

  “What . . . ” Then I stopped, my brain catching up with what he was saying. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I’m not inclined to believe you.”

  Having my words thrown back at me, I felt the urge to curl my lip in a snarl. I glared instead.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  Did I look stupid? “You first.”

  “I’m—you’re bleeding.”

  While my brain struggled to make sense of that, he sprang toward me, almost too fast to track. I tried to stumble back, but he had my hand in his, tugging me toward him.

  “Hey!”

  Then he pressed the tail of his t-shirt against the cut on my arm that I hadn’t even noticed yet. His touch was firm but careful. The anger seemed to leech out of him, redirected into action.

  I said the first thing that popped into my head. “You cut me!”

  His face darkened again. “I cut you? I just stopped you from slitting your wrists. I saved your life.”

  My own temper started to emerge now that I was relatively sure he wasn’t planning to kill me. “I wasn’t slitting my wrists. You yanking it away from me nicked my vein.”

  “Not slitting your wrists. Oh, because there are so many other completely logical reasons for you to be out in the middle of nowhere with a knife, crying your heart out.”

  Had I been crying? I lifted my free hand to my face and found it wet. God, how mortifying. Then I stopped myself. This lunatic thought I was out here committing suicide and I was worried that he’d seen me crying? Get your priorities straight, girl.

  “It’s none of your damned business what I was doing, but I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

  “Right.”

  I glared at him but made no additional reply. He would either believe me or not. Repeating myself probably wouldn’t help my case.

  His long fingers were still curled around my wrist, keeping me immobilized, but oddly gentle in contrast to the storms in his eyes. It felt almost comforting. Which was just stupid given that he was some pissed off, misguided, wannabe hero. Still, my pulse slowed, my breathing evened out, and the fear of the knife finally ebbed. For better or worse, the trial was over.

  He seemed to calm too as we stood there in awkward silence, him holding my wrist and staunching the bleeding. Whatever demons haunted him retreated so that, when he looked up at me, his face was no longer menacing. It was just heartbreakingly sad, marked by the kind of loss that scars a person. I knew it because I saw the same expression in the mirror every day.

  My fingers itched to touch his cheek and smooth those worry lines away.

  What the hell is wrong with me? I curled them into a fist instead and frowned.

  He lifted the edge of the t-shirt, now stained with a darker spot on the black. “I think it’s starting to clot.” Working quickly, he ripped two clean strips off the bottom of the t-shirt. He folded one and pressed it to the cut and wrapped the other around my wrist to secure it. “Doesn’t look like you’ll need stitches.”

  My wrist felt suddenly cold without the pressure of his hand around it.

  I am losing my mind.

  I folded my injured arm across my chest and looked up at him. “Thank you,” I said, though I didn’t really know for what.

  His eyes followed me as I moved back to the boulder, snagging the notebook and stuffing it in my bag. I picked up the leather sheath and looked at the knife buried in the tree. “How did you do that?”

  His shoulders jerked in a motion that was half discomfort, half shrug. “Lucky shot. I can try to get it out if you want.”

  I lifted a brow at that. “Aren’t you worried I’ll use it?”

  “Will you?”

  “Not like that.”

  I guess he believed me because he crossed the clearing and reached up, wiggling the blade free of the tree. Then he walked back and presented it to me hilt first. “Be careful.”

  “Always.” I slid the knife back into its sheath and slipped it into my bag. “Look, I need to go—” I trailed off, turning a fast circle.

  The boy wasn’t there.

  I stood and listened for sounds of his passage. I heard nothing. Lifting my head and inhaling, I tried to find his scent. But other than a lingering trace of boy and sweat and that thing I couldn’t place, there was nothing but the tangle of green and dirt that was summer in the mountains.

  Gooseflesh broke out along my arms, despite the rising summer heat.

  He was simply gone. Vanished into the woods he’d come from. Like a ghost.

  Chapter 2

  Elodie

  I woke in the pearl gray light of dawn, my head still reeling from dreams of the ghost boy. I rolled over to turn off the alarm that would blare in twenty minutes and saw the scrap of t-shirt on my nightstand. Not a dream. Or rather, not just a dream.

  I flopped onto my back and ran my fingers lightly over the clean bandage I’d applied the day before. It didn’t hurt anymore. Carefully, I peeled up the edge of the First Aid tape and peeked. There was an odd sort of relief in seeing the thin, angry scab still stretched across my wrist. Accelerated healing was one of the signs of the change. After the bacon fiasco, I half expected things to start happening wham, bang, one after another even though I knew it should take more time.

  The house was silent, a state of affairs I was becoming more and more accustomed to these days. As a firefighter, my father worked multi-day shifts on duty, staying at the fire station. When I was little, back when we lived in Texas, I had my own cot at the station and a platoon of unofficial uncles among the other firefighters. Since we moved here and I hit high school, that had stopped. Dad had gotten more comfortable with leaving me alone at the house. Or maybe he just wanted to get away from me. It was hard to tell. Either way, I was well-trained enough in The Rules that he knew I wasn’t going to go do something that would get me noticed.

  Which was exactly why he wouldn’t expect me to be lying about my summer job.

  I r
olled out of bed and headed for the shower.

  As far as Dad knew, I was spending my summer as a trail guide in the park. I certainly knew the area well enough, and it was the kind of job where I could disappear easily if something went wrong. Which really meant if I wolfed out and tried to eat someone. I suppose I should be flattered that he gave me credit for enough control that I could get away in that eventuality. I knew it was only because I’d made it through this year and because he didn’t know about my new supernatural sense of smell. It was a job I probably would have liked, actually, but I had bigger plans.

  Given my secret, Dad and I never talked about the future anymore. But I thought about it. One more year until I graduated high school. Then what? I wanted college and an education. I wanted a career. And this internship with Dr. Grant McGrath was a step in the right direction.

  One of the foremost ethologists in the field, Dr. McGrath was in Tennessee to do a feasibility study on re-introducing red wolves into the park habitat. Others tried it back in the early ’90s but it didn’t take. Most of the wolves wandered out of the park, got killed by hunters, died of diseases that domestic dogs are vaccinated against, or wound up mating with coyotes or dogs. Eventually the researchers recaptured the remaining wolves and gave up the attempt. But a lot can change environmentally in twenty years, so Dr. McGrath was back to see if it was worth trying again.

  My interest was two-fold: acquire field experience that looked great on college applications and learn as much as possible about real wolves from real life rather than just books. Granted, I was pretty sure that there would be a significant difference in the behavior of natural wolves and werewolves, but I couldn’t see that educating myself about their behavior patterns could be a bad thing. Besides, maybe with my developing senses, I’d be able to find out something that the original scientists missed. Way to find the positive, right?

  As I grabbed my keys off the nightstand, I stopped and stared at the scrap of cloth again. Then, without really knowing why, I shoved it into my pocket and headed out the door.

  We were out of breakfast food at the house, and Dad hadn’t yet conceded that I needed a car, so I was stuck with two-wheeled, self-powered transportation. The air was already sticky as I pedaled the mile and a half to Hansen’s Quik Mart. By the time I rolled in to Hansen’s and parked my bike, I could feel my t-shirt already sticking to my back.

  Way to impress your new boss, I thought. But there was no help for it. We’d be mostly working in the field anyway. If Dr. McGrath didn’t already know that Tennessee got knock-you-on-your-ass hot in the summer, he’d find out soon enough. I was willing to bet they didn’t have this kind of humidity in Montana.

  Inside the Quik Mart, the air was relatively frigid in comparison. I shoved both hands in my pockets as I trudged over to the aisle with the breakfast food. My fingers brushed the scrap of t-shirt and my mind snapped back to my errant “rescuer”. I’d been doing that a lot since yesterday. It was stupid to dwell on what happened. I mean, the guy obviously thought I was some suicidal lunatic. And it wasn’t like I’d ever see him again, so there was no reason for me to be intrigued.

  But maybe that’s why I was intrigued. I wouldn’t ever see him again, so he was a safe fantasy.

  Because of my condition—I really couldn’t bring myself to think of it as a curse—a fantasy was the only kind of relationship I was ever going to have. According to the book, the final catalyst for the change was sex. So in real life, I had to stay as far away from guys and as below their radar as possible. Not as though that had ever been much of a chore. Like I was gonna give it up to somebody who required hand holding encouragement and a billboard stating interest? Please. High school boys were morons.

  The jingle of the bell over the door and a peal of female laughter that was more like nails on a chalkboard drew my attention to the front of the store.

  Case in point, I thought, watching Rich Phillips walk in with the Barbie Squad.

  Amber Cooper, Deanna Jacobs, and Lindy Zimmerman were all part of the popular crowd in my class. Cheerleaders. Blonde. Beautiful. Bitchy. Pick your favorite teen movie and apply the popular girl stereotype, that was the Barbie Squad. Hey, the stereotype exists for a reason. And naturally, the favorite school year occupation of the BS—pun absolutely intended—was giving me crap. Because I was weird. Because I kept to myself. Because, according to popular rumor and the fact that I shot down the few guys with enough guts to approach me, I was an ice queen. I had only just recently managed to return to a low profile after a particularly vicious smear campaign they’d executed on Facebook earlier in the spring. Ah, social media. Ruining reputations everywhere.

  I edged away from the powdered donuts and honey buns so that I was further down the aisle and less visible because of the tourist guy in glasses who thought Doritos were an appropriate breakfast food. No reason to get on their radar today.

  Maybe I should disappear to the bathroom, I thought. Surely they’ll be gone in five or ten minutes.

  But then there was the possibility that one of them would have to use it, and I’d get stuck with a face to face in the tiny back hall, so I opted to stay put. I tried to focus on picking out something to eat so that I could pay and get out of here, but none of the over-processed, high sugar options really went with the churning of my stomach. I moved toward the drink cases in the back, circling around to the copious display of meat sticks. I didn’t think too much about the fact that Slim Jims sounded a lot more appealing than Hostess pastries.

  “Meat for breakfast. A girl after my own heart.”

  I froze, my hand an inch away from the beef jerky. A big tanned arm reached past me to snag a couple of meat sticks. I chanced a glance up and caught the 180-watt grin of Rich Phillips. As casually as I could, I glanced the other way to see who was standing behind me, but no, it was just me. Rich Phillips was talking to me.

  I grabbed a package of teriyaki flavored beef and turned toward him, automatically stepping back and not meeting his eyes as I mumbled something about the merits of starting the day with protein. To my utter horror, Rich didn’t move on down the aisle to the cash register where two-thirds of the BS were motioning for him to hurry up. Instead he followed me to the drink cooler.

  “So what’re you up to this summer, Elodie?”

  “Nothing much.” I opened the case and grabbed a water.

  He reached into an adjacent cooler and grabbed a Gatorade. “I’ve gotta drop my sister off for a Junior Explorers thing in the park, but after that we’re all headed to the lake to go water skiing. If you’re not busy you should join us.”

  The clear glass door fell shut out of my suddenly numb hand. He was inviting me to hang out? I shot a glance out the front window, searching for flying pork. Seeing none, I looked back at Rich and managed—just barely—not to gape.

  “Um, that’s nice of you to offer, but I really can’t.” I tried to step away again, but Rich countered, boxing me in against the glass doors with his bigger frame.

  “What’s the matter, El? I don’t bite.”

  He offered up the grin again, but I was too busy trying to hold back a snarl. I was really particular about my personal space and having this big, testosterone-reeking boy invading mine was so not okay. All my instincts were screaming at me to shove him away and attack, but I held very still, even as his body pressed into mine, his scent—one of soap and sweat and some hideously overpowering boy deodorant—making my head spin.

  Don’t react. Don’t draw attention. Don’t react. Don’t draw attention. The familiar litany ran through my brain as I kept my eyes on the Boar’s Head Tavern t-shirt in front of me and struggled to keep my breathing even.

  “Rich, what the hell are you doing?”

  I closed my eyes. Oh God, this was worse. I was being rescued by Amber.

  Rich finally stepped back and I could take a full breath. I edged away from both of them, fully aware of the daggers being mentally thrown at my back by the head Barbie, who totally had her sights set o
n Rich. And he was just hitting on me. In front of her. Oh shit.

  It didn’t actually matter whether he was being serious or playing some kind of joke. Amber’s ire, once earned, was a thing of legend. So, really, I just needed to find a rock to crawl under for the rest of the summer and pray she found someone else to harass for senior year.

  A girl can dream.

  With Amber on duty, Rich rounded up his little sister, a skinny little girl of about ten who seemed to hide behind her curtain of sandy hair as soon as Amber got within ten feet of her. Poor kid. I totally related. The pair of them got hustled to the front of the store. I hung out by the coffee station, hardly daring to breathe until the lot of them paid and left.

  Mr. Hansen eyed me as I brought my jerky and water to the register. “They givin’ you trouble, Elodie?”

  “No, sir.”

  The tilt of his caterpillar eyebrows suggested he didn’t buy it, but he left it alone as he rang up my purchases.

  Outside an engine roared to life, along with a radio cranked up to maximum volume. Stuffing my breakfast into my backpack, I looked out the window just in time to see Amber’s hot pink Jeep Wrangler back over my bike. This time I couldn’t stop my mouth from falling open in shock.

  Mr. Hansen swore and reached for the phone even as the Jeep peeled out of the parking lot. “I’ll call the Sheriff.”

  “Don’t bother,” I told him, clenching my teeth to hold in the sudden spurt of rage. “I’m sure it was an accident.”

  Of course it wasn’t. I’d seen Amber’s self-satisfied smirk in the rear-view mirror. But maybe she’d consider us even.

  I went outside to survey the damage. The bike was toast. The frame was bent, the front wheel now resembled a taco shell, and the sprockets were busted. The only place this thing was going was into the dumpster around back. And I was approximately seven miles from the research station.

  Shit. I was gonna be late for my first day of work.